Pipe Firing Ports.

Being a Friday, today's post will be a little more abstract.

A friend of mine recently showed me a book of photos from the First World War. One image in particular caught my interest. Unfortunately it is not practical to scan the image. Instead I have found another photo showing the same points of interest. From the uniforms it is from the same time period and may even be the same trench section. Here is the photo.

 

 

What I find interesting is how firing ports have been created by simply burying a pipe in the rampart. Further along you can see that a rectangular firing slot has been created using planks, probably from shipping boxes.

In most trenches troops fire over the parapet or cut crenels to fire through. Some trenches do use firing slots but constructed in a parapet of sandbags. The approach seen in this photo is much simpler. There are no sandbags to reveal the exact position of the trench. No heads have to be raised above the parapet. There are no crenels that are obvious targets for suppressive fire. The outer ends of the pipes and slots are probably hard to discern.

A pipe would only provide a narrow field of fire but this is not a problem if they are arranged for mutually supporting interlocking fields of fire. At Iwo Jima may of the highly effective Japanese positions were constructed with a narrow field of fire. The only way they could be engaged was to attack head on, which put you within the firearc of many other positions.

One wonders what sort of sight picture firing down a pipe provides. Certainly light glinting off the sights would not be a problem!

Modern troops still use earthworks and I wonder how few use techniques as simple but effective as those shown above? If you have a hide from which you hunt sharp-eyed game the buried pipe(s) idea might be worth considering.

The Books

 

Attack, Avoid, Survive: Now in Epub!

A few weeks back the updated and expanded “Global Edition” of “Attack, Avoid, Survive” was released. It is now 376 pages long but changes in formatting mean that it has about 50% more content than the original book, including new techniques and extra illustrations. It is a sturdy brick of a book now. Not only will it teach you self-defence but you can use it to beat a rapist to death and it may just stop small calibre bullets :)

I rather like the printed edition of my book but I am aware many potential readers only have limited space on their bookshelves.

Late last night the Global Edition became available in epub. I had experimented with creating an epub version when the original book was published. At the time there were just too many technical problems involved in the process and it seemed likely that there would never be an electronic version of the book.

http://www.lulu.com/shop/phil-west/attack-avoid-survive-global-epub-edition/ebook/product-22765338.html

Since then, conversion to epub has become a little more user friendly. I was expecting to take a large chunk of the summer converting the manuscript. As it turned out it took much less time. This is not to say that it was not without its problems and didn’t involve some fairly intense work. People wonder why ebooks cost what they do when they need no paper or printing. It is because of the many more added man-hours involved in their conversion. I discovered a book that looked perfect in one viewer would have false hyperlinks in random places when viewed in another. I hope I have corrected all these, but have no way of knowing how other viewers might treat it. If there are such problems my apologies to the reader. I did my best with the limited resources and budget that I had.

Some of you will know that “Crash Combat” is already available in epub format. An obvious question is whether there will be an epub version of “Survival Weapons: Optimizing You Arsenal”? The answer is that I cannot see that happening anytime soon. The shotgun chapter of the book contains a large number of useful reference tables which may be problematic to convert to epub. I have no immediate plans to make an epub version of the book anytime in the near future so if you are interested in this book go ahead and get the print copy.

The Books

 

Items for a Daysac, the photoshoot.

Some photos of the daysac kit I discussed yesterday. I will stress some other items are likely to be added as suits the intended trip. Currently the bag and the contents shown weigh about 5½ lbs with the waterbottle empty.  

Clockwise, from the top.

Red and black item is the keffiyeh. A hank of paracord and one of general purpose string rests on top.

The green item to the left and beneath the keffiyeh is the All-weather blanket. The trainer laces visible are attached to the AW blanket grommets.

To right of keffiyeh in white plastic bag is a toilet roll. Beneath this is a pack of disposable lighters. Only two will be carried and a couple of nightlight candles added.

The lighters and toilet roll are on top of my boonie hat

Under the boonie hat is a 3 litre Platypus waterbottle with drinking tube.

On top of the waterbottle is a pair of poundstore gloves and a headover to the left of them.

Left of the waterbottle and resting on the AW blanket is a pac-a-mac

The daysac is on the far left with the first aid kit on top. Above is the whistle/compass/thermometer/LED light/magnifier/mirror thing that I use as a zipper pull.

Not shown above: Pencil, candles and hand-crank LED flashlight. I forgot to take them out of their compartment for the photo!

 

A photo of the first aid pouch contents and the other side of the whistle thing.

The pouch came with a pair of clean disposable gloves in a small bag, visible top-middle. Bottom right is the rest of the contents the pouch came with. Some plasters, tape and absorbent materials. I cannot recall if the alcohol wipes came with the pouch or I added them later. These items will be placed in a better ziplock bag since this one has torn.

The contents I added: Painkillers and diclofenac. Tin of Vaseline. More plasters.

The Books

 

Items for a Daysac.

Some time back I acquired a new daysac. To my mind, it is prudent if such a bag routinely has certain items stored in it. I had recently been writing about the “six tools of travelling” so I thought that it might be interesting to use these as a guide towards stocking my bag.

The first item of the tools was a hat. Often my old daysac had contained my favourite sun-hat, an advantage-pattern boonie. I decided it would be useful to have something for colder conditions too, so I acquired another headover. Very versatile items are headovers, as I will discuss in a future blog. Treating headgear as a component of the category of protection of extremities I also placed some gloves in the bag. These were cheap acrylic gloves I found in a poundstore. With them I placed some disposable vinyl gloves which could be used with the acrylic gloves to form a vapour barrier system if it was really cold.

The next “tool” would be a towel or cloth. For this I chose a keffiyeh which can serve a variety of purposes. A bandanna or old triangular bandages are good alternatives. I chose a black and red keffiyeh which could also be used for signalling.

For the medicine component I brought a red medical pouch from the 99p store. It came with some items inside but I mainly brought it for the pouch. For a basic medical kit ensure it has a useful number and variety of plasters. Add some painkillers and alcohol wipes and pack it all in waterproof bags within the pouch. I added some diclofenac since I get migraines and a small tin of Vaseline. Suncream and insect repellant often also rides in the daysac.

For cordage I added some hanks of string and paracord.

For the fire component I brought a bundle of disposable lighters from the 99p shop and placed a couple in the pack.

The last traditional tool of travelling would be a writing kit. It is quite common for my daysac to hold a notepad and pen. Possibly the pack should contain a pencil and some paper at least. In fact this last category tends to make me think about documentation and signalling in general and is what inspired me to add some additional items.

Whilst in the 99p store I saw a whistle that also incorporated a compass, a thermometer a magnifier, a microlight and a mirror. I’d not use this as my primary means of navigation, of course but it forms a handy and novel ring pull for one of the daysac zips.

I added my Platypus waterbottle with its drinking tube to the bag. If you do not have something like this add an empty 2litre soda bottle you can use for water. When travelling my daysac usually carries a supply of boiled sweets that can provide a very welcome energy boost.

The contents of my old daysac had included a mini-maglight. I’d been rather impressed by a hand-crank LED flashlight from the 99p store. Not as robust as the maglight, it was true, but something that could sit in the pack until needed without worrying about the state of the batteries. I acquired another example and added it to the daysac contents.

One of the first items I had added to be pack was my All-Weather blanket. This is a more robust version of the emergency mylar “space” blankets. It is provided with grommets at the corners and has a non-reflective side. Mine has been on many adventures with me and several times I have found its warmth and water resistance useful. If you do not have one of these you should at least include one of the smaller emergency space blankets in your pack. My local poundstore has two for a pound at the moment, so it is worth stocking up!

The AW blanket makes a pretty effective raincape but I also added a pacamac to the daysac.

The final item that my daysac carries is a roll of toilet roll in a plastic bag. Should I need to make a fire that is going to be my first source for tinder.

The Books